Archive for February 4, 2015

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New York - New York may be famous abroad for glitz, glamor and Park Avenue billionaires but America's biggest city has passed a grim milestone -- a record 60,000 people are homeless.
In November, there were 60,352 homeless people in the city, including 25,000 children, up more than 10 percent on the 53,615 who were homeless in January 2014, according to the website for charity Coalition for...

New York - An Australian woman has won the annual race up the Empire State Building's stairs for the sixth time, a record for the women's event.
Suzy Walsham raced up 86 flights of stairs Wednesday night in 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
The men's race was won by German runner Christian Riedel. The first-time winner came in at 10 minutes and 16 seconds.
Hundreds of people signed up for the...

Israel - President Reuven Rivlin has called for greater inclusion of Arabs and Haredim in public service positions. Speaking at his official residence on Wednesday at a ceremony marking the intake of the first group of students of the Wexner Foundation’s Senior Leadership program for public servants, Rivlin noted that more than a quarter of the children in elementary schools in Israel are...

New York - For the first time, lung cancer has passed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths for women in rich countries.
The reason is smoking, which peaked years later for women than it did for men. Lung cancer has been the top cancer killer for men for decades.
"We're seeing the deaths now" from lung cancer due to a rise in smoking by women three decades ago, said Lindsey...

Argentine - Anti-Semitic posters were spotted recently in a Buenos Aires neighborhood with a large Jewish community, reading "A good Jew is a dead Jew. That good Jew is Nisman."
The signs referred to Argentine state prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead just days after publicly accusing President Cristina Fernandez of trying to orchestrate a cover up in the investigation of Iran over...

Brooklyn, NY - It was a 90 second joyride involving several traffic infractions, a pedestrian and a fender bender, with the entire incident captured on video by the stolen car’s dashcam.
21 year old Shaya Jungreis of Borough Park double parked his 2013 Infiniti Q50 yesterday afternoon in Bushwick, leaving the engine running and the doors unlocked. Jungreis, who works in the construction...

Warsaw, Poland - Five finalists were announced Wednesday in a competition for a memorial in Warsaw to Poles who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II.
An organization representing rescued Jews plans to build the memorial in the heart of the former Warsaw Ghetto and next to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
It is being financed by private Jewish donors from around...

New York - The driver of the SUV who died in a collision with a Metro-North commuter train is remembered as a mother of three who was kind and not one to take risks.
Ellen Brody's life came to a sudden, fiery end when the train plowed into her Mercedes that was stopped at a crossing. The vehicle exploded into flames and set fire to the front of the train, killing five passengers.
According...

Israel - Jerusalem on Wednesday decided for the second month in a row to withhold the transfer of tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority because of the PA's decision to join the International Criminal Court and initiate action against Israel.
One senior government official, explaining the decision to withhold the funds, said that monthly transfers will be held up until Israel...

Albany, NY - The new speaker of the New York state Assembly says the Legislature needs tighter rules on financial disclosures and more transparency.
Carl Heastie proposed several ethical reforms that he says will help restore the public's trust in the Legislature after several recent scandals.
An analysis of Heastie's own financial records shows just how loose the rules are. The Bronx...

Washington - A top government regulator says Internet service providers — including those selling wireless broadband — should be regulated more heavily to prohibit them from slowing down or speeding up web traffic.
In an op-ed to Wired magazine posted online Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said his plan would regulate Internet service similar to phone...

New York - A group of doctors and patients, some terminally ill, on Wednesday asked a New York court to rule that doctor-assisted suicide is not against state law.
The lawsuit, filed against New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in Manhattan Supreme Court, claimed that a New York law making it a crime to cause or aid another person to commit suicide does not apply to doctors who...

Detroit - Republican Jeb Bush stumbled on foreign policy in a big speech on Wednesday, telling a crowd that American diplomats have been withdrawn from Yemen, when in fact not all of them have been.
Pressure from Islamic militants in the country has led to a diplomatic drawdown in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. While the U.S. embassy has stayed open, routine consular services to the public were...

United Nations - The U.N. Security Council is condemning "in the strongest terms" last week's killing of a Spanish peacekeeper in southern Lebanon.
Wednesday's statement comes a week after Cpl. Francisco Javier Soria Toledo was killed during the Israeli military's exchange of fire with the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group in a disputed border area.
Spain's U.N. ambassador quickly blamed...

Dallas - In a second round of litigation, a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a North Dallas neighborhood HOA against an Orthodox Jewish rabbi regarding the synagogue he runs out of his son’s home.
The ruling at the Collin County Courthouse this morning stated that Toras Chaim, run by Rabbi Yaakov Rich, can continue to offer religious services in the residential neighborhood of Highlands of...